


A Daydream of a Colorful Demise

by BaristaKitty



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, M/M, Normie!Saihara, Other, Pre-Canon, Pre-New Dangan Ronpa V3, Reader-Insert, Spoilers, no specified gender for reader, the world loves danganronpa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 02:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13560507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaristaKitty/pseuds/BaristaKitty
Summary: Of all of the Detective-hopefuls in the Danganronpa fandom that you had met, the boy that would become Saihara Shuichi quickly became your favorite the moment you laid eyes on him at the coffee shop.He was waiting by the counter, having already ordered his drink and holding it with both hands.





	A Daydream of a Colorful Demise

Of all of the Detective-hopefuls in the Danganronpa fandom that you had met, the boy that would become Saihara Shuichi quickly became your favorite the moment you laid eyes on him at the coffee shop.

Saihara was waiting by the counter, having already ordered his drink and holding it with both hands.

He was sipping on his tea, listlessly staring out the window at the street. What was he thinking? About how cold it was? That he was grateful for so few other customers being present for your first meeting? He’d mentioned before that he didn’t like being in   
large crowds.

He wasn’t much taller than you, he was small for a boy, and his adorable face (what you could see of it beneath his hat, anyway) concealed every morbid thought that passed through his head so well that you would have never guessed the extent of his love for   
Danganronpa without knowing him.

He noticed you were staring and shyly waved, glancing at you for only a second before diverting his eyes to the table in front of him. He was trying to smile, but couldn’t hide his nervousness. For someone that wanted to be a detective, he needed to acquire a trademark stone-cold stare. 

You approached him, asked if he was his username, and he nodded.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said politely as he set his cup down.

“It’s nice to meet you, too!” You were enthusiastic, so he knew you were sincere.

You sat at the table across from him, glancing him up and down once more to try to imagine him as a Danganronpa character. Like most fans, he’d already somewhat prepared himself for the part he wanted considering that he’d dyed his hair blue, so it was easy to see his design as a SHSL Detective.

Especially with his hat—you tried to imagine him a scowling expression on his face in place of his open-mouthed enchantment and it was perfect.

He had to keep the hat.

Saihara blinked.

“You don’t…” His voice trailed off, and his cheeks were warm. “Look like your picture anymore.”

“Well…” You combed your fingers through your hair. “It is a bit longer now, I guess.”

“I mean…you look kind of…”

“Normal?”

“Y-Yeah—not that it changes my opinion of you, it’s just a little surprising. I almost didn’t   
recognize you.”

“I see…”

You shook your head and lightly laughed, in case he was afraid that you’d been insulted. “It’s alright. There’s no need to be so nervous. I’m going to get a drink, so watch my bag?”

“Sure.”

\- - - -

By the time you returned, Saihara had calmed himself down as expected and his attention was on his phone until you took a seat across from him once more.

He was lurking the Danganronpa message boards, as expected, but you couldn’t make out what sort of thread he was reading before he shoved it into his pocket.

“So,” you said, snapping a snowman-shaped cookie apart and offering him the half with the head. “You said you had some new ideas? For your execution? We can talk about that! I have some new ideas for mine, too.”

“Yeah!” Saihara’s face lit up at the prospect of his own demise and took the treat from you. “So, I was thinking of replacing the clock tower puzzle with the unsolvable murder of myself. I’m locked in a room, with a dummy of myself lying on the floor covered in blood. There’s a timer below a massive clock! I have about five minutes to solve my   
own murder and select who is going to kill me—“

He paused suddenly, having realized his increasing volume.

“I like this so far! Go on.” You took a drink, then a bite of the cookie, and he happily obliged.

“I have to solve my own impending murder, with minimum clues that are impossible for me to figure out—but of course, even if I do, it’s despairingly useless! Even if I managed to guess right!”

Saihara’s smile slowly stretched as he simmered in his daydream.

“I wonder if they would be willing to print out screenshots of my forum posts and tape them to the walls? I won’t even know what Danganronpa is! Hey, don’t you think it’d look so cool to see me, as SHSL Detective, in a room full of my own words having to study them desperately, looking for any hint that might save my life?! I’d probably think that Danganronpa was a code word or an anagram of some kind. My brain would be running a million miles a minute…wow, it’d really be something...”

He relaxed his posture and let his back rest against the chair, lifting his chin to stare upwards at the ceiling and granting you a rare view of both of his eyes.   
His eyes looked particularly shiny right now, and you wondered if he was about to cry with joy.    
Just like you, Saihara really, really loved Danganronpa.   
It was so easy to get emotional just thinking about being on the show and living the life--practically everyone had an ideal of who they would be in Danganronpa, how they’d want to kill, and how they’d want to die if they lost the game.   
Winning or losing, just the honor of being a part of Danganronpa was enough.

When he didn’t say anything for a few seconds, you tilted your head. “And? How does the execution really happen? Do the walls smash you in or something?”

“Oh!” Saihara looked back to you and recomposed himself, adjusting his hat down but making no effort to conceal his face this time. 

He was grinning now with clenched teeth, unable to help himself. “When the timer expires and my guess is wrong, the dummy stands up and murders me. Stabs me to death or something. I won’t be able to figure out that I sent myself to my own grave, willingly, and that I’ve finally gotten what I’ve always dreamed of! The irony is so despairing, don’t you think?!”

What a terrifying way to be executed, and you tried to imagine being his classmate and watching such a spectacle—that the detective who had carried the hopes of everyone else upon his shoulders in earlier trials now running from some animatronic, faceless version of himself like a mouse locked in a cage with a snake.

You nodded in approval and gave him a quiet applause. “I like it!”

“Thank you!” Saihara sounded as if he didn’t need your approval nonetheless, then softened his voice. “You’d like to watch something like that, right?”

“I’d be glued to my screen. Absolutely!” Hand over your heart, you sighed. “The despair would be so delicious. But y’know, I’d like to watch you win the game even more. Afterwards--”

“I think I could win!” Saihara was confident. “No detective has ever become blackened before, because they’re always too good natured to actually try to win the game that way. They always want to try to fight the game, instead. But I wouldn’t be that way--not really. I’d pretend to be everyone’s friend at first, solve the first couple of cases, get everyone depending on me...and then I’ll frame someone else for murder and put on the greatest show Danganronpa has seen since season 39!” 

He scratched his head, smile noticeably faltering. “With all of those detective skills, I’d be able to manipulate the entire game. It might even be too easy.” 

“Even if it’s too easy,” you said, reaching across the table and placing your hand over his, which was still holding the decapitated head of the snowman cookie. “It’d be fun, right?”

Saihara slightly jolted in his seat, startled, but didn’t move away from you.    
Instead, he looked away shyly and placed his other hand over yours. 

He was blushing.

“Yeah. It would be.”

“Hey, Saihara-kun…” 

“Y-yes?”

“How would you want to kill someone?”

Saihara shook his head, pulled his hands away from yours, and sat back in his seat. “It’s your turn first, before we share anymore.” 

“Fiiiine. What would you like to know?”

“Well, for starters…” Saihara finally took a bite of his cookie and chewed on it in thought, all the while you waited patiently for his request.   
He already knew most everything about you, but you were more than happy to share with him.    
Saihara really was your favorite Detective-hopeful, and if Team Danganronpa valued your input as much as they claimed, then the scouting department would be paying him a visit soon enough. 

“Can you tell me about it?” He finally asked, wiping the crumbs from his mouth with his sleeve. “What it was like?”

“Which part?”

“Winning, obviously!”

 


End file.
